


The Sacred Marriage

by Angelike



Series: Sacred Marriage 'verse [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Community: kinkme_merlin, Druids, First Time, King Arthur's Reign, King of the Forest, Kink Meme, M/M, Mists of Avalon, Mystery Lover, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Plot What Plot, Podfic Welcome, Prompt Fulfillment, Short Story, Virgin Huntress, Virgin!Merlin, Virginity, bottom!Merlin, dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-18
Updated: 2009-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:55:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelike/pseuds/Angelike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last night before Merlin is to leave the druid conclave and step into the position of young King Arthur's court magician, he is compelled to do the druids one last service.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sacred Marriage

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written in response to the following prompt issued anonymously at the kinkme_merlin livejournal community: ["The Sex Ritual from the Mists of Avalon film."](http://community.livejournal.com/kinkme_merlin/1108.html?thread=271444#t271444)

Merlin had been eleven when the Druids had came for him, pulling him out of the arms of his tearful mother with dire warnings and silver-tongued promises. He had begged them not to take him—with heaving sobs, with clenched fists, with agonized screams—but they would not be swayed. Their hearts were forged of cold iron.

In the six years since he had been swept up into their strange world of archaic rituals and deep magic, he had come to understand why they could not allow him to remain in blissful ignorance. “Emrys,” they called him, and whispered of destiny and prophecy and the rising of new gods. All the magic under his skin, the eclectic charge of power tingling at his fingertips: these were the tools that would remake the world, if only he could find the strength and will to use them. Long had the Druids awaited his coming, yearning for the day they could raise up their precious savior in praise and reclaim their place as the spiritual masters of the land called Albion. To their eyes, he had never been a child—nor a person, really. The yearnings of his heart mattered little.

It would be a relief to leave them behind on the morrow.

All he had to do was get through the night and it would all be over. Camelot would offer new opportunities, a new life. Playing the part of court magician to some puerile king just grown into his crown might be a bit of an annoyance, but it could be fun. Maybe. Assuming this Arthur fellow didn’t turn out to be as big a prat as rumor made him out to be.

Okay, so he wasn’t holding out much hope.

At least Camelot was close to King Cendred’s kingdom? He could go home. Would his mother even recognize him? Would she approve of the man he’d become? Would she love him, even now?

Merlin inhaled, taking in a deep, shuddering breath, and was suddenly grateful for the ridiculously intricate mask shielding the upper half of his face from sight. He could smell the smoke from the Beltane fires and knew the Great Hunt had ended and the man who would be his lover, this year’s King of the Forest, would soon arrive. It would not do for the man to see him in tears. There was no sense in making the ordeal any more awkward and miserable than it had to be.

No one had asked Merlin if he’d wished to take part in the ceremony, but if the Lady Vivian and Lord Tauren insisted that the future of Albion rested on his acceptance of the role of the Virgin Bride, what choice did he have? He would not have been permitted to leave the conclave for the outside world with his virginity intact anyway—it would have left him too vulnerable. At least there was honor in this sacrifice. That the man who came for him would never know his true face was some small comfort.

Normally it was a young maiden who was chosen for this role, but there were outsiders present—knights, nobles, and kings—who were loath to beget a bastard on a druid girl of unknown origins; therefore, no one expressed surprise when the Three Priestesses had displayed a young man as the evening’s prize. Merlin had trembled under all those hungry eyes. Skin slick with fragrant oils, naked all but for the softly beaten leather at his loins, the careful lines of ink curving down his body, the bridal bracelets glinting at his wrists, and the customary mask weaved firmly into his unruly curls—never before had he felt more frightened and exposed.

But he needed to do this.

One last request fulfilled for a people he loved and hated in equal measure. Then he would be free.

When the door to the ritual chambers creaked open, Merlin was more or less composed. He could feel the man’s eyes on him, studying him with scorching heat, even before he looked up.

He was young, this noble hunter who had felled the King Stag. Merlin could not see his face, obscured as it was by long, masculine line’s of a mask that matched his own in intent, if not delicacy. The man’s skin flickered golden in the light, muscles rippling as he stalked forward.

Merlin found himself clinging to the blanket with something akin to desperation, breath quickening in anxious terror as the man paused at the foot of the bed, grasped the bottom of the blanket, and began to pull it from the bed, inch by agonizing inch. Merlin’s feeble grip gave way.

And then the man was crawling up this body, the hard calluses of his hands gliding easily up Merlin’s thighs. Blue eyes caught his own, claiming—possessive. Oh, gods.

It was a shock when the man leaned in to kiss him, gentle and demanding by turns, coaxing Merlin open with more consideration than he had dared to hope for. Although violence was frowned upon in this joining, no rules dictated that the bride needed to enjoy it. So long as the King of the Forest implanted his seed in the goddess’s vessel, the terms of the fertility rite would be met.

Merlin tasted honeyed mead.

Tentative, curious, he sucked experimentally at the tongue invading his mouth, heart fluttering erratically when the other man hummed his approval, the warm hands at his waist squeezing lightly in encouragement. Reassured, Merlin wound his arms around the neck of his faceless lover and allowed himself to be tempted into pleasure.

Maybe this wasn’t the way Merlin might have wished to go about giving himself up for the first time, but the mate the gods had chosen for him seemed kind and was certainly attentive to his needs. Although words were forbidden from passing between them, somehow Merlin understood that his partner had an honest desire to see him enjoy himself. So why shouldn’t he? He had nothing to be ashamed of.

When they were both stripped of what sparse clothes they’d worn, the man did not immediately seek to breech him; instead, he settled his burgeoning erection between their bellies, soothing Merlin’s tension with soft kisses down his jaw and along his collarbone. It was nice, this slow seduction. He’d never understood why people made so much fuss about copulation. It all sounded so messy, so uncomfortable. He’d never taken into account how even the slightest touch, when infused with the right emotion, could shake the world. No one had touched him with anything resembling fondness since his mother.

No one except for this man.

Merlin couldn’t get enough.

Mewling quietly, he arched up, rubbing his growing hardness against the other man’s already leaking cock and had to bite his own tongue to avoid demanding _more_ and _now_ and _please_. A muffled chuckle met his unspoken plea, and then he was scrabbling at broad shoulders as one of those large hands, now slicked with oil (and when had that happened?), wrapped around both their cocks and _pulled_.

He didn’t even notice when the man slipped the first finger inside of him. Not until that finger found a secret bundle of nerves that made his vision go spotty and sent him shaking and sobbing through the most amazing orgasm of his life. Those sharp blue eyes were boring into him, dark and hazy, when Merlin managed to regain control of his senses.

“S—Sor—” Forgetting himself, Merlin began to apologize, but the man’s mouth covered his, swallowing the taboo word with a deep-throated chuckle.

The second finger went in just as easily as the first, no doubt aided by the fact that Merlin was now nothing but a limp mass of satiated bliss. The third, however, was uncomfortable. Despite the impatience he surely must have felt, his lover stretched him carefully and ignored each of Merlin’s guilty hints that he wouldn’t mind if the man hurt him a little.

By the time his lover deemed him ready, Merlin’s erection was back full-force, though his interest wilted significantly when fingers were replaced by that dauntingly hard cock. Loose as Merlin was, it wasn’t enough: the pain was _jarring_.

Once fully seated, the stranger paused, giving Merlin time to grow used to the intrusion—an impressive feat of self-control. The sweet kisses drinking in his pained tears made Merlin’s chest flutter queerly. Gods, he wanted… he wanted…

Then the man thrust his hips. Slowly. Cautiously. Again. And again.

It still hurt at first. But, gradually, the pain ebbed into something else, something foreign and new. That sensitive place inside him was under near-constant stimulation, sending shockwaves straight to his groin until he was back to full-hardness and gasping with each well-aimed thrust.

He wasn’t aware of much after that—just the feel of that strong body against him, over him, in him, owning him. He was being possessed in ways he’d never known he’d wanted to be possessed. If this said something disparaging about his character, he didn’t care—only wanted _more_.

Something was building under his skin. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak, even if he wanted to. His senses tingled, and when he closed his eyes he thought he could make out the sound of two hearts beating in sync: thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.

And suddenly he was breaking apart, exploding from the inside out, and he was screaming, the sound echoed in the shocked moans of the man convulsing over him, clinging to him, teeth biting into him and then—and then—

It was done.

Merlin didn’t watch as the man quietly cleaned himself. He didn’t flinch under the fingers that stroked lightly over the tatoo at the curve of his hip, under the gaze that peered regretfully into his, or under the lips that pressed softly against his cheek in bittersweet farewell. He didn’t stare longingly after him as he left the room.

Merlin didn’t fall asleep crying either.

* * *

Arthur, Merlin decided minutes after being introduced to him, was just as much of a prat as he’d feared.

“_You_ are the sorcerer that’s to be inflicted upon me?” King Prat said in such a condescending tone that Merlin found himself mouthing the first syllables of the spell that would turn the man into a warty toad before he could stop himself. He managed to derail the impulse. Barely. “You don’t look like much. How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“You’re barely out of your cradle.” The insufferable twat snorted, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Why don’t we discuss your potential appointment again in a few years? Say, when you’re old enough to shave?” King Prat then swept away without so much as a by-your-leave, the red of his cloak swirling majestically in his wake.

Merlin gawped after him.

“Erm,” said Sir Lancelot, who had been attempting to make the introductions. “He’s not like this all the time. Really… He just… had a rough night. He’ll come around.”

“If you say so,” Merlin said, dubious, and made his own exit, which might have been something resembling majestic had he only been able to walk properly. How he was supposed to turn someone that annoying into a king worth serving was a true mystery.


End file.
